


Two Marvels in One Day

by kvikindi



Category: Les Misérables - All Media Types, Les Misérables - Victor Hugo
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-19
Updated: 2013-12-19
Packaged: 2018-01-05 04:26:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,295
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1089603
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kvikindi/pseuds/kvikindi
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In 1827, Mohammed Ali Pasha sends a giraffe to Paris. Enjolras sees both the real and the analogical giraffe. (For Enjolras/Feuilly week.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Two Marvels in One Day

"I should like a giraffe," Prouvaire said, gazing with dreamy attention down at his cup of coffee.

"You should like it for an hour, and then you should forget it," Combeferre corrected.

"No! A week, at least."

"It would seem rather hard to forget a giraffe," Courfeyrac noted. "Surely. They stand, what, six meters tall? A little less?"

"Were anyone to manage it, Prouvaire would be that person."

Prouvaire sulked. "Calumny."

They had all been to see the Nubian giraffe that morning, on its arrival from Marseilles. Yes, all: even Enjolras, though he had protested vehemently-- pointing out the beast's role as pacifying spectacle, a trinket from the hoard of a king, and invoking furthermore the need to keep common cause with the embattled citizens of Greece. That last, he could admit now (if only to himself), was a thought delivered him whole-cloth by Feuilly, who had offered it up in private conversation. Enjolras himself had few ideas about Greece. His knowledge of it approached Alexander and recoiled, growing thereafter hazy. He had not even known the nature of the present conflict, which, as explained to him by Feuilly, so clearly translated concerns of his own (republican concerns, no less) to that other, foreign scene.

But Courfeyrac was not interested in the Greek republic-- or rather, only theoretically-- and Combeferre had a certain scientific obsession, and Prouvaire was enamored of anything that might be called a prodigy. So off they had gone to the Jardin des Plantes, where it was necessary for them to meet with Lesgle and Joly, and for Combeferre and Joly to engage in anatomical conversation (the culmination of which set Courfeyrac to a dramatic pretense of retching), and then for Joly to feel quite faint with the heat, and for Lesgle to take him away again. All in all it was an eventful affair. And the crowd was overwhelming: a mass of people who brayed and shoved, bodies hot and coarse, heads growing damp with sweat that they flicked away. Enjolras felt threatened by them. Their raucousness was an orchestra that had not yet been tuned, a bad noise: a cacophony that swelled and clamored, and he wished for the conductor to come on soon.

But then the giraffe, rising up out of the southern distance-- small at first, a moving speck, but swaying closer on strange long legs. It loomed over the crowd. Its neck was slender, graceful, like that of a swan, but tawny. It had a pattern like a Roman mosaic, as though someone had laid in darker pieces to ornament its flesh. Enjolras was standing quite far off, yet from this distance he could see the animal's eyes. They were black and opaque. He believed that animals had no emotions; sadness was the burden of men solely. But he saw the giraffe stop and eye its audience with a semblance of grief, lifting its flat flared nose a little. The audience _oh_ ed, excited by the gesture. They wanted to go closer, to touch the marvelous thing, as though holding their hand against it would conquer the power it had. As though they could shrink it, contain its monstrosity. They both desired and did not desire this, he thought. Their souls desired to look at something wonderful, and yet there was this urge to make it ordinary. He did not understand it. He wanted to stay far away.

"Sublime," Prouvaire breathed.

Combeferre, critical, said, "I had expected greater deviation. It is merely your ordinary ungulate-- with a long neck, it is true, and yet--"

"You have no sensibility."

"I do not greatly desire it."

"Imagine riding one into battle," Courfeyrac interrupted. "Do you think it has great gnashing teeth?" He performed an impression of what he thought the animal's teeth might be like, which made Prouvaire snort.

"The jaw of the ungulate," Combeferre began-- and he was off on a lecture, accompanied by the continued gnashing of Courfeyrac's teeth.

Enjolras ceased to regard them. He gazed at the giraffe, which shied with a step like a dance. "If only Feuilly were here," he said.

Courfeyrac paused in his exaggerated antics. "Ah, but he has cosmopolitan worries, our little worker bee!"

"I wish you would not call him that."

Courfeyrac pulled a face. "I am only joking. You know I greatly esteem Feuilly."

The conversation had not improved from that point, and soon Prouvaire was bored, and Courfeyrac was insisting that they buy lemon water, and then a coconut, which he proceeded to break by smashing it in the street, which engendered an argument with Combeferre about carelessness, which in turn engendered an earnest discussion with Prouvaire about the attitude that it was appropriate for man to assume towards Nature. By the time they made their way to the Musain, late in the afternoon, Enjolras had begun to experience a headache. He was happy to be out of the sun.

Feuilly arrived as they were still rehashing the arrival of the giraffe. He was a little out of breath; there was red paint on his shirtsleeve, as though he had let it rest upon a damp brush unthinkingly. Enjolras watched the stain; when the cuff slid up, he could see paint also on Feuilly's wrist. It looked like a tiny Japanese sign, a word in an unknown script. He was staring, he thought, and he flushed a little when Feuilly glanced at him.

"Monsieur le Grec!" Courfeyrac greeted Feuilly. "Don't worry; in your absence, we made very solemn faces at the King's new beast. We booed and hissed to communicate your displeasure."

"Courfeyrac did not," Prouvaire said. "Courfeyrac made a fool of himself."

"Then it would seem I have not missed such a novelty after all," Feuilly said. He laughed and ducked as Courfeyrac hurled a balled-up parchment. But when he went to sit beside Enjolras, his face was serious again.

"I am happy to see you," Enjolras said stiffly. "I regretted your absence."

Feuilly made a nervous gesture. He disliked praise. Enjolras knew this, and yet kept offering it.

"I would not have made good company, I'm afraid. I know there is no reason to it."

"There is much reason." Enjolras was surprised to find his voice rising, as though he were in an argument. "I find it admirable."

"As a political gesture, I'm afraid it has little effect. Still, I could not stomach the spectacle of the thing." He shrugged.

"Yes." Enjolras looked down. His hands, white and extraordinarily graceful, were folded on the table. He was conscious of their beauty. Others commented often on such physical features; on the curl of his hair, the sharp line of his cheek. He had learned to navigate the crooked pathways of their stares.

Across the table, Feuilly had hidden his hands in his lap. He did this habitually. Enjolras wished at that moment to destroy the habit; to pull his hands onto the table, to touch and see the places where paper had roughened the skin, where pins had pricked, where paint had settled permanently. He felt a kind of rage at the enfleshment of his nature, of Feuilly's nature, of any flesh that constrained the hard pure nature he knew in men. He was used to the taste and weight of this rage, and he knew how to swallow it again.

"I ask myself," he began. "That is-- surely the spectacle itself suffocates its object. Oh, that is very abstract. I am not sure what I mean."

"Ah," Feuilly said. "It is not the war in Greece that troubles you."

"I do think of Greece. And yet--"

"Is the sight of a prodigy so terrible?"

"It isn't." Enjolras met his level gray eyes. "You know it isn't."

"So what, then?"

He was silent for a long moment. Feuilly was patient, and did not offer a prompt; such silences were frequent with them. "When we see something marvelous, our first instinct is to place it under glass. The naturalist goes and murders his moths-- do not tell Combeferre I have said this. The classicist chips a piece from the temple and takes it home with him. An animal is displayed in the Jardin des Plantes."

"To study, in your first case; to treasure, in your second-- like a relic, I suppose-- and to see, in your last."

"You cannot keep what makes it marvelous, in any case. It does not persist through imprisonment, or through severance, or death. It isn't something that's in the body. It isn't an object."

"Like an organ," Feuilly said, a faint smile playing on his lips, "that some men have, and others don't have, that makes you very clever, or very beautiful."

"Yes, like an organ." Enjolras flinched, caught out. "I was not talking about men."

"I see. I am mistaken. You were talking about giraffes." Feuilly considered him for a moment. His cheeks flushed, as though he were thinking something daring. He had a very pale complexion; his thoughts were often betrayed by it. "May I speak freely?"

"I wish that you would."

"Then let me ask: are you the moth in this example? If I had to guess, I would mark you for the temple: white monument to marble gods, still moved by ancient spirits, mistaken by the unworthy for stone ornament." He stuttered on the last word, as though aware that he had said too much. He bit his lip. Then rushed ahead: "I, of course, am the giraffe-- rare creature, docile emissary, importee from some unimagined land--"

Enjolras felt physically hurt by the imputation. He opened his mouth to speak.

"It's all right," Feuilly said, cutting him off. He smiled painfully. "Really, it is. Imagine _not_ being a giraffe. Where did they say it had come from? Khartoum? All the way to France. To Paris! Full of temples it can never enter, but it least it sees them. At least there's that."

Their eyes met across the table. Enjolras had forgotten there were others in the room. He was reminded by a laugh. Courfeyrac seized him by the shoulders. "What are you talking of? Giraffes in temples? How unusually fanciful, O Solemn Leader. I thought you'd be planning a pamphlet. 'On the Great Threat to Liberty, Health, and the Nation Posed by Nubian Ungulates.' You see how I have learnt a new word. Combeferre has taught me it, by sheer force of repetition."

"It is the only way to get things through his head," Combeferre agreed, coming up to the table. "Are you not planning a pamphlet? A giraffe is an excellent analogical figure. It is very memorable, and we could illustrate it. It has a face to make people laugh, and yet with a certain solemnity."

"By all means," Feuilly said. "Let us use the giraffe."

He sounded tired. He pushed his chair back from the table.

"Feuilly," Enjolras said.

"Excuse me, gentlemen; I feel that coffee is required."

Enjolras trailed him as he left, out into the dark and narrow hall. "Feuilly."

"Can we please not speak of it."

Enjolras caught him by the shoulder. He was acutely aware of the cloth under his fingers, the smooth bone under Feuilly's flesh. "You are not an example. You are not a creature. You are complete, and there is nothing in you I scorn or laugh at. There is no temple on earth where I could imagine you unwelcome. Please do not…" He did not know what he wanted to ask.

"Don't," Feuilly said. His eyes were mutely pleading, even in the half-darkness. "Isn't it obvious? If I am the giraffe, I am also the moth. I am pinned through the heart. I wish I were free."

"I am no naturalist." Enjolras took a breath. "But if I had to be, I can think of no subject more worthy of my attention, no person to whose taxonomy I would more willingly devote myself. I would spend whole decades describing you, but I do not wish to be your jailer. Please don't make me. The doors to this building are always open."

A small smile touched Feuilly's lips. "Ever the defender of liberty."

"Yes, but--"

"No. I know." He lifted his hand to cover Enjolras'. The red paint on his sleeve was a stain in the darkness, rather like blood. Enjolras laced their fingers together, a little too tightly. They stood in the shadows and breathed, in one of the long silences that came so easy: a space between words, another kind of communicating.

At last, of course, Courfeyrac burst through the doorway. "Ha! We have started your pamphlet for you, and it is superlatively dreadful. Have you finished your tiff now, so that you may come and see? Prouvaire is putting it in verse, and _Medieval_ verse at that."

"Well," Feuilly said dryly, "I do not want to miss two marvels in one day."

He smiled at Enjolras, who smiled back: uncertain. They kept their fingers interlaced as they followed Courfeyrac back in the room. Inside, Prouvaire was complaining, "It is an interpretation, not the encyclopedia, Combeferre!" There was a strong smell of ink. Enjolras could feel the soft-and-rough skin of Feuilly's palm, the warm thread of his pulse beating. His heart rose a little, harder and faster. This is the marvel, he caught himself thinking: what I hold in my hand and cannot contain. It was a sentimental thought, but he savored it.

"Enjolras, come!" Prouvaire called. "Feuilly! You are needed to save wonder! Do not let the scientific establishment prune it away!"

Combeferre flicked ink at him and they dissolved in laughter. Outside, the falling sun cut its light in through the window, gilt and thick with the end of the day, setting each one of them a corona, turning them miraculous, for an instant: into saints.

**Author's Note:**

> More information on the giraffe (a bona fide Noble Animal) can be found here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zarafa_%28giraffe%29


End file.
